Review: Warm Bodies
By Christine Petralia
Image courtesy of Summit Entertainment
February 3, 2013
Love really does heal all, even zombies in a post-apocalyptic world, where all they do is roam what’s left of the earth in search of their next meal of human flesh and brains. That is the central theme of Warm Bodies, a film based on a book of the same name by Issac Marion. But zombie enthusiasts must leave all of their pre-conceived notions of what zombies should and shouldn’t do at the theater door, as just as Twilight made vampires sparkle, director and screenwriter Jonathan Levine has made zombies have feelings.
But don’t let that stop you. Warm Bodies is actually a feel-good film and wasn’t half bad. It’s actually a perfect date movie. It has zombies, and slight gore for the men, and a romance for the women. And with Rob Corddry as the main zombie’s best friend, it has comedic relief.
The plot is simple. Somehow, something happened and humans turned into zombies. Most of the survivors sealed the city and themselves off to protect themselves. But, as in most zombie movies and shows, the humans must leave the protection of the city to go out into the world for supplies. Julie (Teresa Palmer) and her friends, including boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco), head out for medical supplies and encounter a group of zombies, which wandered from an area airport in search of food, aka humans.
Included in that group are R (Nicolas Hoult) and his best zombie friend M (Corddry). R is a unique zombie, as he is the one narrating the film. He knows he’s a zombie, but can’t remember anything about his former life. He knows that he wanders around the airport day in and day out. But apparently, when he wanders out he collects trinkets, which he brings to a plane that he has taken over. He even listens to records. R and M also seem to communicate with a lot of grunts and groans, and the occasional uttered word. He also explains that among the zombies are Bonies, zombies that eventually deteriorate, and can only survive by eating a lot of humans. They are dangerous, even to regular zombies.
On this particular day, when R’s group encounters Julie’s group, the zombies quickly overpower the humans and much of the group is killed. R kills Perry and eats his brain, the best part he says, and quickly absorbs all of his memories, including his memories of Julie. When R comes to after his fantasy of Perry’s memories, he sees Julie and protects her from the rest of the zombies. He then ‘kidnaps’ her, insisting it’s ‘not safe’ and brings her to his plane. She tries to escape, but can’t with the zombies there. She agrees to stay for a few days, where the two get to ‘know’ each other, even though he just grunts most of the time. However as the two spend more time together, you can see that R is starting to feel alive again, even the occasional heartbeat every now and then.
Soon, Julie says it’s time to go back to her city. The two take a car from the airport and hole up at a house one night to stay safe, her from the bonies, and him from the humans looking for Julie. After his confession to her that he ate Perry, she leaves him in the morning. Stricken with grief, he starts to wander back to the airport. Meanwhile, back at the airport, something is happening to the zombies. The love that they saw between Julie and R triggered something in them and they are starting to get feelings again and starting to dream again. The bonies realized this and basically kicked the zombies out of the airport.
Determined to win Julie back and show her that the zombies are changing, he uses the memories of Perry’s to find his way to the city. And in a Romeo and Juliet reference, which is essentially the theme of the film, R stands outside Julie’s balcony pleading with her to see that he and the other zombies are changing. He also warns her that the bonies are headed to the city, in search of the changing zombies, now a source for food, and humans.
And in one of the weirdest zombie battle scenes, the humans team up with them to fight off the bonies. Though, it takes getting shot and actually bleeding for Julie’s father, the general (John Malkovich), to believe that the zombies are somehow curing themselves on their own.
It’s definitely a unique twist of zombie films. As I mentioned, there’s a lot that zombie enthusiasts have to leave at the door, as these zombies don’t exactly fit the mold of what we believe zombies are. For instance, when R is walking through the city of humans, goats pass him, and though he jokes that they are appetizing to him, he walks away without eating them. Any real zombie wouldn’t be able to pass that up.
I enjoyed it and recommend it to essentially everyone. Afterall, who doesn’t love a fun-loving film with a twist like zombies???
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